Province releases unedited Burton Winters' search tapes

Unedited telephone recordingsreleased by the Dunderdale government on Thursday show a provincial official was concerned about how quickly agencies in Newfoundland and Labrador would respond to requests for air support in the search for Burton Winters.

Since CBC obtained copies of the conversations last month with the voices of provincial officials editedout there have been calls for the government to release the tapes. Some of theconversations were between an official at the provincial Fire and Emergency Services officeand the federal Joint Rescue Command Centre in Halifax.

The first call into JRCC comes fromPaul Peddle ofFire and Emergency Services in St. John'son Monday, January 30th the morning after Winters went missing.

The tapes the CBC originally received had Peddle's voice edited out.

"JRCC Rescue, bonjour?"

"Yes good morning, it's Paul Peddle calling from Fire and Emergency Services over in St. John'sthe weather is down in the area and we can't get a small chopper or a plane in the sky to head to Makkovik. I don't know whether ye' can do it or not but wondering if you can do a humanitarian mission, go have a look and see if you can find the young fella."

JRCC decided not to send air support to help in the search for Winters, in part because of weather and mechanical problems.

Many people have criticized that decision, including Premier Kathy Dunderdale who called it a "moral failure" by the federal government.

Winter's snowmobile was found on the sea ice late Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 31. Shortly after that discovery, asecond call is made to JRCC requesting air assistance. A military helicopter is dispatched from Goose Bay several hours later.

Fire and Emergency Services advised it would haveanaircraft availablefor a daylight search the next day. The helicopter contracted by the province can't do nighttime flights.

Rescue Co-ordinator Kristin MacDonald from JRCC laterattempts to get provincial officials to make arrangements that night fortheir own air support, so provincial planes could be in the air searching at first light.

"All I'm suggesting is it might be good if you could make those arrangements tonight to make use out of the full daylight,"urged MacDonald.

But in the conversation that had been edited out of the earlier tapes, Peddle reveals his concerns about trying to make prior arrangements for provincial air support.

"I know if I go tonight looking for permission, they'll say, 'wait until ye guys do your thing tonight.'Once I hear back tonight I can contact Gander and Gander will have a chopper ready out of Goose Bay tomorrow morning," said Peddle.

The timeline released by the provinceshows that the search team in Makkovik called Fire and Emergency Servicesseveral hours later, at 1:30 a.m. (AST) Wednesday, requesting air support because the military pilots had run out of the amount of time they were legally allowedto fly that day. FES contacted provincial government Air Services five and a half hours later, at 7 a.m. (AST) to authorizethe flight.

Burton Winters was found dead later that morning.